The post below is one I wrote when our youngest child was six months old. As we prepare for her to turn 2 next month (cue tears!) it is so easy to forget how quickly things change.
Last week, I did a workshop with the focus being how new moms can take care of themselves in this new role they are in.
One participant mentioned reading some of my previous posts on sleep issues we had with our daughter, and wanted to know how I made it through. While things might change, it seems infant sleep is still a measure by which we judge our success as parents.
In sharing this part of my journey, it brought back all of the feelings I had during that stage of life. The sleepless nights, the guilt, the fear that I might never feel like myself again.
I remembered writing the post I am sharing and all of the emotions that came along with it. After writing it, this post was shared by some larger media networks, which sparked a lot of feedback from people who don’t normally read my work. As with anything that “goes viral” these days, you are going to get a mix of reviews. Some people felt that I did not understand sleep-training or I was judging others who did it.
This was far from the truth. (Spoiler alert: we did end up sleep-training our daughter, as we had done with our son prior to this post being written, and it was the best thing we could have done.)
This post was written from the heart and with the perspective of someone who was struggling to know what to do in these moments, as many moms do. So I am sharing this post again, not for judgment but for hope that if you are, or have, felt the same way at some point, you can know you are not alone.
I have been sharing a little recently about the sleep-training struggles we have been having with our six-month-old. After posting something on social media, so many people reached out to share that they, too, struggle.
And I can’t say that I am surprised. Getting your child to sleep through the night might be one of the most coveted parental successes out there. Yet there are so many mixed messages about how to handle the process. Let them cry it out. Soothe them. Pick them up. Don’t pick them up. Dark room. Night light. Sound machine. Silence.
It is confusing!
Trying to figure out what is best for you and your child when it comes to sleep training is a huge task in and of itself. Then, you must implement the plan and see success, all while being incredibly sleep-deprived. The whole thing has been very difficult for us, and I know the same is true for many others. While I am by no means an expert on infant sleep (the last few nights in our home would actually suggest I am the exact opposite), I do believe you need to follow your gut when it comes to sleep-training.
A few months ago, I came across a story online. I cannot remember exactly where I read it or who wrote it, but the message stuck with me. The author shared an account of a visit she had made to an orphanage overseas. She was struck first by the sheer number of infants they were caring for. But then something stood out to her. She noticed that none of the babies were crying. All of the babies laid quietly in their bassinets. Some were asleep but many were awake, yet not a single one was crying.
When she asked a caretaker at the orphanage how they were able to get the babies to be so quiet, the response was heartbreaking. She was told that there were too many babies for them each to be picked up every time they needed. Over time, these babies had learned that no matter how long or hard they cried, no one was going to come pick them up. So they stopped crying.
Now, I was only a few weeks post-partum when I read this, so you can imagine the hormonal crying mess that I became. But even now, thinking again about this story I get emotional. Thinking about all of these babies, with no one to pick them up. No one to soothe them. And here I am considering not picking up my child in an attempt to get her to sleep. Suddenly, it feels wrong. While I wholeheartedly believe there is value in teaching your baby to self-soothe, I am personally struggling to find the line between that and abandonment.
My husband and I have been having an ongoing discussion about how to handle this current sleep (or lack thereof) issue. All of the advice we are getting is to let her cry it out. And we try that! Every night she struggles to sleep, we let her cry (at least a little).
But something does not feel right to us. The other day, I shared this story with him and again was overcome by tears. This time, it might have been the sleep deprivation rather than the hormones, but there is still something about this story.
One of the things most important to me as a parent is to make sure that my kids know I will always be there for them. Critics might say part of that includes teaching them to sleep. But while I am laying in my bed listening to my daughter scream in her room, my gut is telling me I need to pick her up. So in the moment I told my husband this story, after wiping away the tears, we made a decision.
We will pick up our daughter.
Maybe when she is older, and I have a few more months of sleepless nights driving my decision, we will revisit the “Cry it out” technique. But for the time being, what is best for our family is to not allow the crying to escalate to screaming. To not let a timer dictate when we will go in and reassure our daughter that she is safe. We will pick her up when it feels like that is what’s best. When it seems like soothing her is better than the potential longer stretch of sleep we might get if we held off.
And if the mood strikes, I might even let her sleep in my arms!
So while I may never sleep again (that can’t be true, can it?), I am going to hope that those babies in the orphanage find their way into loving homes. And that they eventually learn they are cared for, and that someone is there to pick them up.
Jmore parenting columnist Talya Knable is a psychotherapist who lives in Lutherville with her husband, Stephen, and their two children, Jack and Leigh. Her website is tkpsych.com/ She is also the assistant clinical director of Shalom Tikvah (shalomtikvah.org/), a local non-profit organization that supports Jewish families facing mental illness and other challenging life circumstances.
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